Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil due to the risk of arrest under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The announcement was made on Wednesday by Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who confirmed that Putin will instead participate in the forum via videoconference.
Brazil, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, is legally obliged to enforce the ICC’s decisions. The court issued the arrest warrant against Putin in March 2023, accusing him of the war crime of unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected the charges and denounced the ICC’s legitimacy, but legal complications have continued to restrict Putin’s international travel.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Rio de Janeiro to represent Russia at the summit, which will gather leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—alongside newly admitted member states including Iran and Ethiopia. Putin’s absence from the BRICS gathering in Brazil mirrors his decision to skip the 2023 summit in South Africa, another ICC member state.
The BRICS summit is scheduled for early July and will address topics such as economic cooperation, de-dollarization, trade alignment, and the bloc’s evolving role in global geopolitics. Moscow has increasingly turned to forums like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to maintain global influence amid Western sanctions and diplomatic isolation following its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Brazilian officials have not commented in detail on the ICC warrant, but sources in Brasília previously indicated the government would be bound by international obligations if Putin entered Brazilian territory.
